The first softball game of the season was this past week! Sort of, anyway. For some reason, the league manager decided to try something different this year, so we have 2 “preseason” games, during which we will use different rules. Only 4 innings, 10 batters per inning, no more and no less. Outs do not matter, you bat 10. Start with a 2-2 count, so 1 strike and you’re done. They’re trying it out, to see if maybe there’s interest in a forming league that plays like that all the time. I thought it might be fun but I’m not so crazy about it any more. Anyway, the opposing team only had 6 players show up so we didn’t even have an umpire for the game. We loaned out a couple guys for their outfield, and it’s hard to say who “won.” But it was good to have a practice anyway, since we have 4 players on the team who have literally never played before. And we have lost a couple from last year. We’ll see how it goes. Friday, we all went out to see “Avengers: Infinity War” which was incredible…and wow. What felt worse: the ending of Infinity War, or the ending of The Empire Strikes Back? Not sure. Saturday, Beth and I took the kids on something of an expedition. Beth had seen a commercial on late night cable for a specialty hardware store called Hinges & Handles, in Osceola, a place that is not easy to get to directly from Warsaw. There were a lot of back country roads directed by the GPS. But we went there specifically to get some replacement hardware for her antique dresser, which we’ve never been able to find before. But this place had some! She’s super excited about it. Won’t be cheap though. But she’s wanted to do this for a long time. We also hit some furniture stores in Elkhart since we’re both absolutely hating the couch we have now, and also we finally took the family portrait from Virginia Beach to Hobby Lobby to get it framed, gaining on 2 years since it was taken. I went to visit Mom on Sunday, she was asleep in a chair when I got there. We walked around the floor there a bit, looked out the windows, then sat and watched TV. She didn’t say much the whole time I was there. I asked if she remembered me and she says she does, but she couldn’t recall my name. She also didn’t remember Laura. But, she did tell another resident that I was her son so that was good. She seems to know that she recognizes me but I don’t think she’s quite sure why. I also found her glasses again, in the same place in the cart where they were last time, so she probably keeps taking them off and putting them somewhere.

This has been a fairly low-key weekend, for Beth and me anyway. Friday after school Missy headed to a church youth conference in Holland MI, and Natalie went home with a friend and to a middle school dance. It was just Beth and me and Alex, so we went out to dinner at Applebee’s. We picked up Nat later on (she had a really fun time…had gone with friends and not on a “date.” Later in the evening she told us she broke up with her bf because he was smothering.) Saturday was e-learning day (complicated by the fact that Nat had left her iPad at her friend’s house the previous night) so we were home pretty much all day. Missy was home from the conference by around 7, she said she had had a blast. Today I took the kids to see “Ready Player One” which was awesome, incredible! Beth didn’t go because she had a headache, probably not the movie to see if you have a headache. Also notable during the week: there was a coaches meeting for church softball, in which it was revealed that we’re trying something a bit different this year: 2 preseason games, with some funky rules. We’ll see how that goes. Also Beth and I have started making reservations for our summer vacation. We’ve reserved spaces on the Amtrak from South Bend to Boston, and renting a car to see Newport and Acadia National Park. Going to be expensive. But cool. I’ve always wanted to do a train trip like this, we’ll see if it really is as fun as it seems. 20 hours is a long time. I bet it’ll be good though, I don’t have to drive it.

Friday was a gorgeous day. The first one we’ve had this year. And it made Beth a bit stir crazy. She does love her a picnic. As soon as the weather is nice she wants to carry all the food and dishes and service and everything outside to eat there. I’d rather eat inside and then go outside without all the extra work, dirt, and bugs but I knew about all that when I married her. Anyway, one nice day and she plans a big picnic at Pottawatomi Wildlife Park, and having the kids invite friends. So Saturday afternoon a couple friends came over (Alex asked the girl he went to the dance with a few weeks ago, but she couldn’t come) and we toted a nice hot dog and veggie lunch to the park. Where it was drizzly and freezing. Luckily there was a shelter at the park with a picnic table under it, so we had a dry place to grill and eat. The kids went off to do some exploring along the river (Natalie caught a frog) and the pioneer cabin, and after we’d all eaten we all went for a hike along the trails and do some geocaching. Unfortunately there was only one cache in the park, all the rest have been taken down or disappeared for one reason or other. But we found it, and had a nice nature walk without bugs (but with mud). Afterwards we packed up and headed out, a bit earlier than planned so we went to the bowling alley afterwards and all had a game. I went to visit Mom on Sunday, first time in a few weeks because she’s been sick. She was wearing a towel bib when I got there, not exactly sure why, but she did have the sniffles so maybe that was why. I gave her the Easter card and the little stuffed lamb that Beth got her and she cried and cried when she read it. She hugged me and said ‘I love you so much.’ It was a hard visit. I can’t really tell sometimes how much of her is left, what she really remembers. I know she recognizes me but I’m not sure she really knows who I am. I stayed for a couple hours, just sitting with her watching TV, other than when I gave her the card she hardly spoke. I also found *both* pairs of her glasses. Like last time, she didn’t have them on and they were nowhere to be found in her room, but turned up in the nurses’ cart. And this time they were both in there! So hopefully the nurses can help keep track of them from now on.

We had a pretty low-key spring break this year, especially compared to last year. We’re trying to save some money for a summer vacation trip this year so we weren’t going to do a big trip, but we wanted to do something, so we went to Chicago to go to Medieval Times (holy cow expensive) again. I took Wednesday and Thursday off, and we drove to Schaumberg after I got out of work Tuesday. We stopped at Dickey’s BBQ Pit for dinner on the way, that place we discovered when the tire stem blew out last December. So good. Anyway Beth figured with the pool, we’d have something to do that was cheap, plus maybe we could hike the trails or go to the Lincoln Park Zoo, also cheap. However it was absolutely freezing outside last week so outdoor activities were out, and the pool was so loud and crowded with kids that it freaked out Natalie that first evening, and I forgot my swimsuit besides. So Wednesday we were looking for something else to do, and I found Groupons for admission to the Chicago History Museum (as seen on “Mysteries at the Museum” on the Travel Channel), so we drove into the city and did that for the morning and afternoon, then got me a swimsuit and hit the pool again. This time it was much less crowded and noisy so everyone could participate. Later on we headed for the castle. They have a new show there, which is good because I’d seen the old plot line 3 times already, but the new plot was pretty dark, seemed like one of the knights was mad that the queen didn’t want the knights to fight to the death. Or something like that. Anyway, around bedtime Nat started feeling sick and threw up into the toilet several times, which meant we had to re-arrange our sleeping arrangements and I slept on a pile of couch cushions on the floor. We didn’t waste a whole lot of time heading home in the morning either. Then I worked on Friday and was off for the weekend. Once again I didn’t go see Mom, this time because I got a call that she had another UTI and she had been acting up (I hope not like last time when she got so paranoid) and I was afraid that me being there would agitate her. So, maybe next weekend. Missy and Nat were both out with friends most of Saturday (unusual case…we had to call and get after Missy because she didn’t tell us when she’d be home, didn’t call, didn’t bring her phone with her, and at 7 we wondered when she was coming home). Nat was at a movie with a boy (and his mom) who she insists is not a boyfriend. Sunday Alex and I raked a bunch of leaves that are still blown against the fence in the backyard, and we had our small group for the first time in quite a while.
Last week the Myers' were also in town for a day. They still live in the Cincinnati area, but their younger girl is graduating and is going to be attending Grace College next year, so they were in town to make some arrangements. They called me and asked if we were free for dinner, so we met up with them and had dinner at Hacienda.

Natalie is home. We had a family counseling session scheduled for Tuesday afternoon but she called and said she was being discharged at noon so we hurried over to pick her up, and then found out that she was a bit premature. So we waited around a bit and got the family counseling session done a bit early so we could get her home. We met with one of the nurses on the way out and she gave us some meds instructions, which confused us a bit since two of them were quite a bit lower than what she had been taking. But we went with it…until bedtime when Nat had a terrible panic/crying attack over the meds levels, and just kep repeating ‘it’s not right’ over and over. So we gave her the meds levels she had been on before going to the clinic and put in calls to the doctor and to her doctor here. The next day I checked at the pharmacy and made some more calls, and stopped in at Bowen Center to see if I could talk to the doctor or his staff there directly. He was out but I got her an appointment for the next morning, and the clinic called back shortly afterwards and we found out that they had had her med levels all wrong when she got there. So they thought they were raising one dose (they “raised” it to half what she had been taking ) and keeping another the same (which was 1/6 of what she had been taking). Beth got her in to see the doctor the next morning, and they were appalled that the clinic would make such a meds mistake. I know Beth gave them the list of what she had been taking when we got to the ER, but they screwed it up somewhere. The moral of that story is never assume the doctor knows what he’s doing just because he’s a doctor. Anyway, we got Nat to school the rest of the week, but it was a struggle for her to stay there. She wound up in the nurse’s office a couple times with high anxiety not really surprising after messing up the meds. But it was the last week before spring break at least, so she won’t miss any more school (between mono and the clinic, it’s been a lot) next week. She also was invited to go the Fort Wayne to see a movie and play laser tag with a friend from church on Saturday, so that was fun.

I didn’t go see Mom again this weekend, during the week I heard she had some sort of stomach bug and was throwing up a lot, so I thought it best to stay away. Also notable this week was finally getting a payment from Mom & Dad’s long term care insurance company! Woo hoo, we won! It’s taken 6 months but it looks like they are going to start paying what they owe. The storage loft in the garage is also finished, and I’ve started making trips to the storage unit to get things out of it and put them up on the shelf. I intend to be out of the storage unit completely by the end of April so we can free up about $70 per month.